Shadow Of A Dream
by ConflictedCalypso
Summary: Entry for day one of SQ week, magical intoxication. Set after the season two finale, so some spoilers if you haven't seen it. Also largely unbeat'd, so apologies for any glaring mistakes.


"Aw, shit." Emma collapsed back onto her bed – or what passed for a bed, anyway, on the sorry excuse for a pirate ship that was the Jolly Roger – with a groan, her hand thrown over her eyes in an attempt to block out the suddenly blinding light coming through the tiny window in the top left hand corner of her cabin.

It had seemed like a good idea, when she'd absently flicked through the spellbook that Regina had begrudgingly agreed to teach her some magic from, to do a spell that had promised to make the user exceptionally drunk – on a ship where there was a very limited alcohol supply, and where her parents had eyed her in disdain whenever she and Hook had stepped off to one side to take turns taking gulps of rum from the single bottle that the pirate had on board (so he said, anyway), she just really needed to cool off, for just a little while.

But now she was thinking that maybe she'd made a _huge _mistake – her head spun, the feeling not helped by the gentle swaying of the ship as it cut neatly through the water towards Neverland, and she had the distinct feeling that if she were to stand up she'd promptly fall on her ass.

A tentative knock on the door cut through her thoughts, and she chose to ignore it, praying that whoever was on the other side would just disappear, but, of course, her luck had already run out, and a second later the door opened a crack and Regina's head appeared in the tiny gap.

"Miss Swan?"

Emma choked back a laugh, because _of course_, out of everyone on board who could find her in such a state, of course it'd be Regina. She'd probably lecture her on how this made her a bad mother because she wasn't constantly worried about Henry every second of every day, but that wasn't the truth. Every day that went by her stomach sank further, worry clawing at her throat until she felt like she was going to throw up, and through it all, Regina's pale face was there, the distress in her eyes palpable, as she pushed both Gold and Hook for an answer to when they'd get where they wanted, _needed_, to be.

So yeah, she'd really needed a damn drink, _something _to help her forget about all of that, even just for a few stolen moments.

"Are you alright?" Regina actually sounded concerned, which just showed how much had changed since they'd left Storybrooke behind – Emma liked to think that they'd struck up a friendship, almost, during the long hours they'd been holed up in one or the other's cabins, the brunette teaching the blonde magic. At first, Emma had thought that it was a terrible idea, but, she supposed, Regina was a much prettier sight than Gold, who was her only other alternative for lessons in the art of magic.

"Peachy," Emma eventually replied, though she didn't move, and a few moments later she heard a soft sigh, and the door shut with a click, hesitant footsteps coming closer towards her before the bed dipped somewhere near her feet.

"Clearly," Regina replied dryly, as she pried the spellbook out of Emma's hand, clutching it close to her chest. The blonde glanced up to see the brunette's lips pursed in amusement as she glanced at the page the book was open on. "An intoxication spell? Really, Miss Swan?"

"Shut up," Emma muttered darkly, and she heard a soft laugh in response from the woman beside her. "It's been a rough week."

"It's been rough for all of us, dear, not just you," Regina pointed out, and Emma grunted in response.

"Why don't you use it as well, then?" She shot at the brunette, who looked taken aback by the question, her eyebrows raising in surprise.

"I… don't imagine that that would be the best idea," she answered, carefully, after a few moments of deliberation.

"Typical."

"Excuse me?"

"Should have never expected you to loosen up for once, is all," Emma murmured, feeling Regina bristle beside her. She wondered why she was even pushing the issue – the two of them getting drunk together, magically or not, couldn't be the best idea, after all. But then again, when had she ever done the right thing?

"Are you challenging me, Miss Swan?" There was a slightly dangerous undertone to the brunette's voice as her eyes met Emma's – the blonde merely grinned, propping herself up on her elbows.

"Maybe."

"I'm not sure your parents would approve of any of this, you know."

"They never approve of anything I do." Emma pulled a face – life had been so much easier when Snow was her best friend, rather than her _mother_. The brunette was unbearable, at times, and that had only intensified being in such close quarters. "But isn't that what parents are for?"

"I suppose. I never exactly had a traditional childhood." Regina's voice was quiet, and Emma cursed inwardly for bringing up the subject of family. As if it wasn't enough that they'd both lost Henry, Regina had lost her mother recently, too.

"I'm sorry about Cora, you know. I don't think I've ever told you that before."

"Thank you," the brunette murmured, quietly, fidgeting with the thin pages of the book in her lap. "She was never… never kindly towards me, the way Snow is to you, but I still… I still loved her." Emma wasn't sure how to respond to that, in fact she was pretty sure that if she were sober Regina wouldn't have told her anything in the first place – she probably expected the blonde to forget the whole thing when she woke up the next morning.

"Need that drink, yet?" Emma teased with a nod towards the book. Regina's lips quirked upwards, the closest the blonde had ever seen her to smiling recently.

"I think I'll pass." She closed the book neatly and handed it back to Emma, rising fluidly to her feet. "You might want to sleep the spell off, it's a pretty strong one – I'll keep Snow away, if you like."

"You don't have to look out for me, you know. I can take of myself."

"Clearly." But there was little malice in Regina's voice, like usual – unless Emma was mistaken, there was a slight note of affection there, but she shook that thought away almost as soon as it appeared, because that was just ridiculous.

As was thinking about how beautiful Regina looked, framed in the light coming from that damn window. She'd be lying if she said that she didn't think the brunette was attractive – she had eyes – but the woman had always seemed so impenetrable, that she'd shrugged all of that away.

But now? After seeing the aching loss in Regina's eyes whenever conversation turned to Henry? The exasperated way she shook her head when Emma asked a stupid question during one of her lessons? How, despite everything, she still helped the blonde learn? The way she'd wanted to sacrifice herself, selflessly, for the town, for Henry, for Emma?

Now she wasn't so sure how she felt.

"Emma?" The rare use of her name from Regina's lips brought the blonde back to present, and she realised she'd been staring. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and she lowered her eyes to the floor, abashed.

Another knock on the door saved her from any further mortification, Snow's voice calling her name through the door a moment later.

"Shit," Emma whispered, and she saw Regina trying to supress a laugh.

"What happened to taking care of yourself?" The brunette asked, voice tinged with amusement, her eyes shining with mirth as they met the blonde's.

"Shut up."

"So eloquent," Regina murmured as she strode towards the door, allowing it to open a crack –Emma saw, through the thin gap, Snow's eyes widening in surprise as she stumbled back a step. "Yes?"

"I… I was just checking that Emma was okay."

"She's fine," Regina answered coolly, her body blocking Snow's view of her daughter. "We're just squeezing in an extra lesson, time is of the essence after all."

"Oh. Okay. Well… be careful." Regina scoffed at that before closing the door in Snow's face, flicking the flimsy lock shut before turning back to Emma.

"You didn't have to cover for me, you know."

"Oh, I know, I just wanted to see the look on her face when _I _opened the door," the brunette answered airily. "The only issue with that, though, is that now I'm stuck in here with you."

"That must be such a hardship."

"Most definitely," the brunette agreed, taking her seat back beside the blonde on the bed, leaning back against the wall and stretching her legs out in-front of her. "So, Miss Swan, how are you going to keep me entertained for the length of time it takes for that godforsaken spell to wear off?"

x-x-x

In the end, it didn't take much goading for Regina to do the spell, too, and Emma was fairly sure that it only succeeded in making herself drunker, too. There was a flush colouring the brunette's cheeks, and she was smiling a hell of a lot more than usual at their stupid and completely random conversation.

Though Emma's hazy mind invariably turned back to thinking about how fucking attractive Regina was, instead of focusing on what she was saying. Which was how she managed to blurt out exactly what was on her mind, instead of answering whatever question Regina had just asked her.

"You're really pretty," she all but blurted, the brunette's eyebrows knitting into a frown as she took in the blonde's words, her eyes clouding with confusion.

"What?"

"I think you heard me." Feeling suddenly bold, Emma leant forward until her face was only a few inches away from Regina's, close enough to be able to drown in those gorgeous brown eyes. The brunette didn't move, though her expression had changed from confusion to wariness.

She didn't know what made her close the final few inches between them and press her lips to Regina's softly – she felt the brunette stiffen under the light pressure and made to move back hastily, cursing herself for being such an idiot, but then a hand had curled into her hair and the brunette was kissing her back, her lips parting under Emma's, a soft moan echoing into the blonde's mouth.

It was only when she had Regina on her back below her, Emma's hands scrabbling at the thin material of the t-shirt the brunette wore, that she stopped, took in that it was _Regina Mills, _Evil Queen extraordinaire, Henry's _other mother_, lying beneath her, looking up at her through hooded eyes, lips swollen from the intensity of the blonde's kisses.

"What are we _doing_?" She whispered, voice harsh in the room, otherwise silent except for the sound of Regina's laboured breathing.

"Honestly?" The brunette's hands were resting loosely on the blonde's hips, her thumbs running absentmindedly along the skin beneath her fingertips. "I don't know."

Emma's eyes met Regina's, and even though she _knew _they should stop, that this was a really, truly, terrible idea, she didn't think she could – not with the way the brunette was looking at her, not when she could see the desire she felt for the former Mayor reflected right back at her.

So instead she leant down and pressed her lips against Regina's once more, deciding that, just this once, she could take advantage of this, because she was sure that it'd never happen again. Sure that it was just a lapse in judgement on both of their behalf's, that in the morning it would be merely the shadow of a dream.

Regina's hips rocked upwards, clearly impatient with the unhurried pace the blonde set when she trailed her lips down the side of the brunette's jaw – but if she only had tonight, Emma was damn well going to take her time.

One of the brunette's hands curled in her hair, pressing her close, whilst the other traced down the blonde's side, fingers pushing up the material of Emma's shirt and flattening against the skin underneath. The blonde let out a sigh of contentment against the side of the brunette's neck, and a shiver rocked through Regina's body at the contact.

It was easy, to lose herself in the sensations the brunette's body afforded her – she'd never admit it aloud, but she'd be lying if she said that she'd never fantasied about Regina before. It was almost impossible not to; she was just so incredibly, effortlessly sexy that it drew the blonde in, no matter how much she tried to avoid it.

Regina's skin was soft beneath her fingertips, and the moans that escaped her quiet, even in the silence around them. Clothes were discarded carelessly, their bodies only separating for long enough for the material to fall to the wooden floor.

When Emma's hand slid between their entwined bodies, flattening against the brunette's stomach before moving lower until she was running her fingers through the wetness at the apex of her thighs, she groaned softly, mouth pressed against Regina's ear. And when Regina returned the favour, her hand shaking slightly as it made it's slow descent downward, Emma's eyes fluttered closed, her head dropping onto the brunette's shoulder.

They moved in an effortless rhythm, as if they'd practised it many times before; it wasn't long before Emma could feel the brunette's walls start to clench around her fingers, felt that tell-tale pull in her body that told her she was close, too – her mouth moved to close over the brunette's, kissing her messily in an attempt to drown out the noise she made when she came.

Much later, after multiple rounds, when Emma had collapsed sleepily sideways, the effect of the spell finally catching up to her, with her arm and one leg draped over Regina's body, her own pressed into the brunette's side, she started to think that maybe her magical excursion hadn't been such an awful idea, after all.


End file.
